Former Bolivian Dictator and Her 2019 Coup dÉtat Accomplices To Be
Prosecuted
By Ron Ridenour - March 1, 2021 0 Covert Magazine
New Vice President Choquehuanca and President Arce. [Source:
telemundo47.com]
As a warning to potential coup planners in other Latin American countries,
the new government of President Luis Arceelected in a landslide in
Octoberwill not adopt a forgive and forget attitude toward former
dictator Jeanine Áñez and her key cabinet ministers.
On the contrary: Barely ten days after the election victory, the Chamber of
Deputies and the Senate approved a final report on the massacres of Senkata
[and] Sacaba. The report recommended that Áñez be prosecuted for genocide;
it also proposed criminal indictments of 11 of her ministers.
Senate President Eva Copa specified that the report would be submitted to
prosecutors for possible proceedings.
Jeanine Áñez [Source: thenation.com]
Several of the coup-makers, including dictator Áñez, key cabinet ministers
and top military officers, have been detained temporarily and prevented from
leaving the country as the new anti-corruption prosecutor, Luis Atanacio,
prepares charges. Proceedings are ongoing but have been delayed due to the
coronavirus epidemic.
MAS (Moviemiento al Socialismo), the party of former president Evo Morales
(2005-2019), recaptured the government in the October election with 55% of
the vote (3.4 million voters). It won 75 of the 130 seats in the Chamber of
Deputies, and 21 of 36 seats in the Senate.
MAS however did not accomplish a two-third majority as during Morales
tenure.[1]
With Luis Arce (Moraless former minister of economy and public finance) as
president and David Choquehuanca (Moraless former foreign minister) as vice
president, it is expected that Bolivia will once more champion the policies
of Morales that made him the most beloved leader in Bolivian history.
According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Morales ended the
500-year-old system of apartheid against Bolivias indigenous peoples (who
comprise a majority of the population), made Bolivia the fastest growing
economy in Latin America, cut the poverty rate almost in half, boosted the
minimum wage five-fold (from approximately $57 a month to $287 a month),
reduced illiteracy virtually to zero, and raised average life expectancy
from 64 to 71.
Evo Morales among his supporters after winning a fourth term in 2019 and
before he was ousted in the coup. [Source: thetimes.co.uk]
Despite winning re-election in 2019 (for a hotly contested fourth term),
Moralesshortly after the electionsuddenly resigned, fled the country,
and sought asylum in Mexico.
Morales did so after Bolivias army chief, General Williams Kaliman, who was
allegedly paid a $1 million bribe by the U.S. charge daffaires in Bolivia,
publicly announced that military officials were suggesting to Morales that
he resign.
In Latin America, such suggestions from the military are not taken lightly
by politicians who wish to go on living, especially since, as Morales
asserted, a price of $50,000 had been put on his head by coup plotters.
For several days prior to the coup, right-wing hoodlums spearheaded violent
rampages against indigenous Bolivians and MAS members. They burned the
houses of Morales, his sister, and other MAS politicians.
Street violence in La Paz in the aftermath of the 2019 coup. [Source:
voanews.com]
Security forces delivered the coup de grace. Police mutinies began on
November 8. Two days later Morales departed along with other MAS officials
and parliamentarians. Morales indicated he wanted to spare the country
bloodshed.
To replace Morales, the military installed Christian fundamentalist Senator
Jeannie Áñez as interim president. She was quickly recognized by the U.S.
and Latin Americas right-wing governments, all of whom refused to call
Moraless ouster a coup.
Áñezs rule was marked by authoritarian assaults and a pattern of insults to
Bolivias indigenous peoples. She called Ayamaras celebrations satanic,
which gave a helping hand to racists who burned indigenous peoples Wiphala
flag. Within days of her government, pro-Morales protestors were shot to
death by military soldiers and helicopter gunners. At least three dozen
anti-coup activists, mostly indigenous people, were murdered during the
year-long dictatorship.
Coffins of Bolivians killed during Áñezs reign of violence. [Source:
woborders.files.wordpress.com]
New Government Orientation
With the return of MAS to power, the question is how fast and how
effectively the new government can reverse the disastrous economic and
social policies of Áñez. Bolivias coup government left the people with a
foreign and domestic debt of 4.9 billion dollars. The coronavirus pandemic
and dictatorial rulemarked by regressive economic policy, cuts in taxes for
the richis predicted to cause a 6% economic contraction, accord to World
Bank forecasts for 2021.
Bolivian indigenous peoples ceremony. [Source: kelos.com]
Luis Arce was born into a middle-class family of teachers and earned his
university degrees in economics. During the first decade as Moraless head
of economy, Arce helped oversee the nationalization of natural gas and oil,
and reduction of extreme poverty from 38% to 17% of the population.
Arce is not considered to be indigenous and is a Marxist.
I have had my ideas since I was 14 years old and I started reading Karl
Marx. Since then I have not stopped having the same ideological position and
I am not going to change for anything, Arce told Reuters in an interview in
October.
As economy minister under Morales, Arce pushed for nationalization of many
sectors, which steered Bolivia to an average annual growth rate of 4.6%, one
of the best in Latin America. Bonuses were paid to pregnant women, school
children and the elderly, and huge investments were made to industrialize
natural gas and lithium for batteries and nuclear energy.
Evo Morales with Finance Minister Luis Arce [Source: orinocotribune.com]
Arce has reinstituted a new Bonus against Hunger, which will help more
than four million people. The beneficiaries will be people over 18, who do
not receive income from public or private institutions, people with
disabilities, mothers, and people who collect the Universal Bonus.
Arce has promised not to cut public spending despite acknowledging that some
austerity measures will be needed. He also declared the process of change
[will be resumed] without hate, and learning and overcoming our errors as
MAS.
Half of all revenues still come from natural gas and oil. Agricultural
production is second. Arce wishes to diversify the economy. He has stopped
the exportation of food, in order to assure that all Bolivians are well fed.
He has fixed the currency rate of exchange to curb inflation.
With a new [U.S.] government we predict better relations that will
translate into the well-being of our peoples, Arce wrote on his Twitter
account.
The Obama government cut off ambassadorial relations upon assuming the
presidency in 2008, and Morales subsequently expelled the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) and United States Agency for International Development
Agency (USAID), which he accused of seeking to conspire against the
Bolivian people and his government.
Morales holds up the coca leaf. At one time he was head of the coca growers
union which resisted the War on Drugs. [Source: yahoo.com]
The expulsion followed remarks by Secretary of State John Kerry who stated
that the Western hemisphere is our backyard, its critical to us. Morales
said that these comments reflected the fact that the United States still
has a mentality of domination, of subjugation.
The new vice-president David Choquehuanca, leader of the Confederación
Sindical Única de Campesinos de Bolivia and the Movimiento Campesino
Indígena, was born in 1961, in an Aymara community of La Paz.
The former foreign minister learned to speak Spanish at the age of seven.
Vice President David Choquehuanca [Source: images.search.yahoo.com]
During his years in Morales cabinet, Choquehuanca assumed the general
secretariat of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
(ALBA). Bolivia has returned to ALBA after Áñez had withdrawn from the
cooperative-oriented alliance of eight Latin American countries. The state
has also resumed diplomatic and fraternal relations with Iran, Venezuela,
Cuba and Nicaragua. Áñez had also expelled Cubas 700 doctors and medical
workers.
Evo Morales, third from right in front, at ALBA summit in 2017. [Source:
wikipedia.org]
Half the population is indigenous (some sources place the percentage even
higher). At the beginning of Morales presidency, a new constitution was
created with grassroots participation. It recognizes 36 peoples as
indigenous, and made three of their languages, along with Spanish, official
languages of the nation. Quechua people make up half the indigenous
population; Ayamaras 41%.
Yet of the 17 ministers, only one is indigenous and four are women. Sabina
Orellana, a Quechua union activist, was appointed Minister of Cultures,
Decolonization and Depatriarchalization.
Sabina Orellana [Source: cloudfront.net]
Ten days after assuming the presidency, Arce fired military right-wingers
loyal to the coup-makers and to the U.S. He replaced them with officers
purportedly loyal to the people and the constitution.
Morales returned to Bolivia from exile the day after Arce was inaugurated,
November 8. He resumed his chairmanship of MAS, but is not part of the new
government. Morales told his people in the state of Cochabamba, The
transnationals do not forgive us for having nationalized our natural
resources
Lithium is why the U.S. backed the coup.
Morales with Arce after return to Bolivia following Arces inauguration.
[Source: mercopress.com]
These remarks offer a warning that the new government, despite its landslide
election victory, remains vulnerable to subversion from the United States
and its Bolivian allies who were behind the 2019 coup and could strike
again.
Coronavirus Prevents Full Recovery
Western mainstream media (MSM) have ignored most developments in Bolivia
since the election other than some coverage about the coronavirus and
floods. MSM puts Bolivia in bed with Russia, because it is supplying Sputnik
V vaccine to Boliviaone of 50 countries to buy this inexpensive vaccine.[2]
The government has also ordered Western-made vaccines from Astra Zeneca,
which charges three times more than the cost of the Russian vaccine.
At the beginning of February, 218,000 people had tested positive. The
population is 11.5 million. Some 50 people are dying daily. Evo Moraless
sister, Esther, died from the virus at age 70.
Esther Morales [Source: i.ytimg.com]
Fearing an economic collapse, Arce has not shut down as much business as
many people desire. Health workers are upset. Hospitals are filled to near
overflowing. Health workers in the most conservative Santa Cruz region
conducted a partial 24-hour strike (February 2), demanding a greater
lockdown of society, in order to prevent more spread of the virus and its
mutations.
Many people also wish to postpone the planned regional and municipal
elections scheduled for March 7. The government intends to maintain the date
despite fears of more coronavirus infections.
The Corona epidemic has postponed the legal proceedings of the coup plotters
who remain under travel ban. When the proceedings resume, all eyes will be
on what happens and the implications will reach well beyond Bolivia.